


Astrological Healing

by Temporarily



Category: South Park
Genre: Awkward Family Camping Trips, Camping, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Stars, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 18:19:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14676740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Temporarily/pseuds/Temporarily
Summary: Why does Creek get the monopoly on star fics?Stan and Kyle start to mend their crumbling friendship out in the Rocky Mountains.





	Astrological Healing

**Author's Note:**

> I went to commune with nature and it gave me fanfiction for the masses.

In third grade, when they went camping, Kyle was smart enough and cared enough to hold in all his complaints. The bugs were vicious and the insect repellent would probably give him cancer, everything was damp and cold, chopping firewood to get warm and dry gave him blisters, and shitting in the woods was just plain unsanitary. Those were just a few of his long list of reasons not to go camping. 

He didn’t restrain himself for fear of Uncle Jimbo and Ned calling him a sissy and telling him some more time in the wilderness would help toughen him up. He couldn’t care less what Jimbo or Ned thought. But he did care a lot about Stan. 

When Stan would shake him awake too late at night and tell him to come outside, he would grab a blanket and go with nary a grumble. Then Stan would lead him to the middle of a field where spring flowers had given way to summer grass, tell him to lie down in the (wet) grass, and they’d get swallowed up by the grand vault of the night sky stretching from horizon to mountain peak. 

They stared at the stars, and found no patterns among the glowing pinpricks to help them make sense of their existence. But it was captivating. 

Stan couldn’t recognize many constellations. A few of the major ones, the ones that never went away even among the lights of civilization, like the Dippers and Orion’s belt. But he said he wanted to learn more, one day.

“Learning constellations is kind of like riding a bike—once you’ve learned you never forget it. Everything looks like a bunch of random dots up there, but if someone shows you how to connect the dots, you’ll see that shape in the sky forever.”

In fourth grade, Kyle couldn’t stand it anymore, and frankly he didn’t give a crap. He complained. He complained as only a Brofloski can complain. The mud was inescapable, Jimbo killed everything that moved, the food was dismal, his thighs were turning to gelatin from all this hiking, and there was no cell phone service. How was he to know what was happening in the world if he was cut off from it? A war could start any second and he’d be out here, oblivious to their imminent peril! All the new memes would be stale by the time he got back!!! Fuck camping, fuck the Rocky Mountains, and fuck that rotting bear carcass sitting by their fire Ned nailed with a rifle before considering that they would have to drag it, two mountain goats, a flock of waterfowl and several dozen small mammals back down the mountain! 

Stan stopped taking him on camping trips. 

In fifth grade, they tried again. Everything was still awful, but Kyle held it in, because they both needed this to work. Jimbo promised not to shoot anything for Stanley’s sake, and he mostly stuck to that promise, with the exception of a few hapless bunny rabbits. Kyle brought some tools to help himself deal. 

“That’s miner’s lettuce,” he read from an unwieldy plant guide while pointing out a little clump of green sprigs with a small white flower. “Miners in the gold rush ate it as a source of Vitamin C.” Stan picked the miners lettuce and ate it. Kyle gave him a disgusted look. “A squirrel could have peed on that,” he pointed out. Stan shrugged and ate some more. 

“That’s a juvenile yellow bellied sapsucker,” he whispered, pointing at the busy woodpecker while holding an absurdly heavy book of birds. “It’s a keystone species, and unlike most woodpeckers, it eats sap from living trees instead of looking for bugs in dead ones.”

“It looks like it has a little mohawk,” Stan observed, while poking at some residue sap with a stick. 

“Moose are short-sighted, love to swim, and they have no upper front teeth so they can suck aquatic plants into their mouth. Their name comes from the Algonquin word translating to, “eater of twigs.”” 

“I’m just glad Uncle Jimbo didn’t get it,” Stan said, watching the startled animal bound back into the trees. He then eyed Kyle’s over-stuffed backpack. “Dude, how many books do you have in there?” 

“Enough.”

“…I can carry some of them,” he offered. Kyle shook his head and shouldered his pack, trudging onwards down the path.

“Don’t worry dude, I’ve got it.” 

His friend chased after him, shouting, “Kyle, stop being a stubborn assmaster and let me have the books!”

Campfire brought all the bugs and cold that Kyle had been fearing, but there was also hot coco, s’mores, stories and cheesy camp songs. Fact: Cheesy camp songs can only be appreciated when one is in the right mood to appreciate them. Kyle couldn’t carry a tune to save his life, Ned sounded like a robot, and all the songs Jimbo remembered from his childhood were either aggressively patriotic or borderline racist. But Stan knew a few nice ones. He wrapped his arms around an over-sized guitar he’d been doing his best to grow into, and sang,

_“Have you ever noticed the old Big Dipper, and wondered what it’s dippin’ all night?_

_Well it’s dippin’ out peace and it’s dippin’ out love and it’s dippin’ out a way of life._

_And if you notice the old Big Dipper, you gotta notice all the other stars too._

_So sit on down and take a look around and wonder just where are you?_

_You’re on a little green speck,_

_On a little blue ball,_

_With the big black sky all around._

_So you better take good care,_

_Of that little blue ball,_

_Cause you know it’s the only home you’ll ever know.”_

“That there was a hippie camp song!” Jimbo declared.

“ _MMMM -- it was a camp camp song,_ ” Ned buzzed.

“It was a great song,” Kyle said. He leaned in closer to his friend’s side and pulled the blanket they shared tight around their shoulders. 

That night amid the discord of Jimbo and Ned’s snores, it was Kyle who woke Stan up and led him out to the field. They laid on their backs in the wet summer grass and Kyle lifted his finger to connect the dots.

“There’s Canis, the Dog. There’s the tail, the legs and the head, see?” 

“Not really. That kind of just looks like a patch of stars.”

“Here,” he moved closer to guide Stan’s hand. “Find Sirius, the brightest one, and then you’ll see a little stick figure dog.”

“Oh yeah, I do see it!” 

“Yeah, and then there’s Pegasus, and that one over there is the Archer.” 

Stan turned to him and asked, “Dude, when did you learn about constellations?” Kyle didn’t tell Stan he’d learned because he was waiting for this moment, when he could teach them all to his best friend. Instead, he lied, and said he was curious. Kyle wasn’t curious about the stars. The stars were terrifying, he couldn’t imagine living under them every night. It was part of why he planned to move to a city when he grew up (despite what his mother said about city life being a complete disgrace), where the stars were nonexistent and he didn’t have to have a mini existential crisis every time he saw them. Kyle couldn’t care less about constellations. But Stan cared, he cared in that sweet, simple way that he loved his dog and he didn’t have to know the importance of a woodpecker as a keystone species to appreciate the silly tuft of feathers on its head. Stan cared about places still unscarred by people, from small mountain streams to the vast Milky Way. So Kyle would pretend to care, because despite all they’d been through, he still cared a whole hell of a lot about Stan. 


End file.
